Donald Trump supporter Birgitt Peterson, center, of Yorkville, argues with protesters on March 11, 2016, outside the UIC Pavilion after the rally for the Republican presidential candidate was canceled.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

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Donald Trump supporters and protesters clash March 11, 2016, outside the UIC Pavilion after the rally for the Republican presidential candidate was canceled.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

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Donald Trump supporters and protesters clash March 11, 2016, outside the UIC Pavilion after the rally for the Republican presidential candidate was canceled.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

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Protesters and Donald Trump supporters struggle outside the UIC Pavilion in Chicago after it was announced that the rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was canceled March 11, 2016.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

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Protesters mock Donald Trump supporters who appeared stuck in the venue’s parking garage after the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign rally March 11, 2016, at UIC Pavilion was canceled because of security concerns.

(Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

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Protesters line up above the Eisenhower Expressway after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign stop at the UIC Pavilion was canceled because of security concerns March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

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Police remove an activist after it was announced that a rally with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the University of Illinois at Chicago was canceled.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

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Police restrain a man after confrontations broke out between anti-Trump protesters and police in Chicago.

(Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

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Police try to control the crowd on the street after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign stop at University of Illinois-Chicago was canceled due to security concerns.

(Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

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The podium is empty after a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was cancelled.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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Protesters against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump chant after it was announced that a rally for Trump was canceled.

(Charles Rex Arbogast / Associated Press)

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Chicago police start to clear the crowd after a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was canceled on the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago.

(Charles Rex Arbogast / Associated Press)

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Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, face off with protesters after a rally on the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago was canceled.

(Charles Rex Arbogast / Associated Press)

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Protesters disrupt plans for Donald Trump rally at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Protestors shout down a rally scheduled by Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump forcing it’s cancellation out of concern for public safety at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion.

(Tannen Maury/ EPA)

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A protester holds up a ripped Donald Trump sign before the start of a rally for the Republican presidential candidate at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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Protesters wearing shirts reading “Muslims United Against Trump” are escorted out the UIC Pavilion in Chicago prior to the start of a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on March 11, 2016.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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A demonstrator is removed by Chicago police during a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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People wait for the start of a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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People gather at the UIC Pavilion for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rally March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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A Donald Trump supporter moves a jacket upon getting settled in at the UIC Pavilion for a rally for the Republican presidential candidate March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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Ed Landmichl, of Chicago’s South Side, waits for the start of a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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Donald Trump supporter Valerie Schmitt, of Naperville, gets settled before Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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People wear socks adorned with the U.S. flag while attending a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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People wait for the start of a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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Marco Maltbia, of Chicago’s South Side, waits for the beginning of a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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People arrive for a campaign rally at the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, to support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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Protestors march in Chicago on Friday, March 11, 2016, before a rally with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the University of Illinois-Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Marton)
(Matt Marton / AP)

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Brian Wilkinson, 35, holds an American flag while Donald Trump supporters enter the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, prior to the Republican presidential candidate’s rally.

(Armando Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

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Donald Trump supporters line up March 11, 2016, at the UIC Pavilion in advance of a political rally.

Jack Righeima, 15, left, and Andrew Alessia, 18, students from Aurora Central Catholic High School, play Trump the Game on March 11, 2016, outside the UIC Pavilion in Chicago.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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June Pitts, center, of Oak Forest, waits in line outside the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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Linda Slabaugh, of Romeoville, a nurse and attorney, attends a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on March 11, 2016, at the UIC Pavilion.

(Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

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epa05207005 Protestors shout down a rally scheduled by Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump forcing it’s cancellation out of concern for public safety at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois, USA, 11 March 2016. Residents go to the polls to cast their votes in the Illinois primary on 15 March. EPA/TANNEN MAURY ** Usable by LA, CT and MoD ONLY **
(TANNEN MAURY / EPA)

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Robert Maricle, of Peoria, stands in line outside the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, for a rally with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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Donald Trump supporter John Gora, of Chicago, proudly shows his T-shirt that reads “Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Democrat” as he stands in line outside the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago for a rally with the Republican presidential candidate.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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Julie Contreras, from left; her daughter Ariana Aprim, 18; Salvador Contreras; and Gilberto Melchor-Sanchez hold a prayer vigil March 11, 2016, across the street from the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. The group, representing the League of United Latin American Citizens, is holding the vigil in anticipation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign stop.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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Ariana Aprim, 18, with the League of United Latin American Citizens, shuts off electric lights at the site of a prayer vigil March 11, 2016, near the UIC Pavilion in Chicago.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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A small shrine is placed at the site of a prayer vigil across the street from the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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Julie Contreras, with the League of United Latin American Citizens, sets up a sign near a prayer vigil across the street from the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago. Activists assembled in anticipation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign stop in the evening.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

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Kayla Utley, left, of Center Point, Iowa, holds a photograph of herself with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from a campaign stop as she stands in line outside the UIC Pavilion on March 11, 2016, in Chicago. With Utley are Trump supporters Giovanni Montalbano, center, of Park Ridge, and Travis Klinefelter, of Dubuque, Iowa.

Violence splashed across the television screen Friday night like a horrific flashback from the 1960s, as fistfights and shoving broke out among thousands of supporters and opponents at a Donald Trump event in Chicago, drawing memories of police and protesters fighting in the streets of the same city during another political gathering in 1968.

What many had feared as Trump’s campaign has proceeded had finally happened on a large scale: A flammable brew of populist anger, campaign mismanagement, a candidate’s own provocative encouragement and protesters fighting back — quite literally — finally found its fuse. The explosion was predictable, given tensions in the country around its changing demographic face and economic displacement that has left many fearful and upset, receptive audiences for Trump’s surprisingly strong candidacy.

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Trump himself was not present; he canceled his event a half-hour after it was due to begin, citing security concerns. The candidate’s statement said that the campaign had determined that “for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena,” the event would not be held. It was after the cancellation that clashes broke out among audience members and between audience members and police.

“Please go in peace,” the Trump statement said.

Peace will be a hard sell, because much of this plays to the desires of the participants.

Trump has yet to back down from any of the incendiary, race-based comments he has made during this campaign; only the night before he had insisted in a Republican debate that he was correct in asserting Muslims “hate” Americans. Moreover, his tough stance on matters such as building a wall on the Mexican border, and his history of drawing huge crowds, are central to his political argument that he alone is strong enough and popular enough to win the White House.

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Although Republican establishment figures and his fellow candidates demanded Friday that he call a halt to the turmoil, it is very possible that within the Republican base, Friday’s events will cement support of him. Richard Nixon benefited from political and racial violence in 1968 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and elsewhere.

Trump’s crowds, while mostly peaceful, have included those instigating violence, and their actions have been applauded by other Trump supporters. Earlier this week, a 78-year-old Trump supporter sucker-punched a black protester being led out of the candidate’s event — and then threatened death to the man he had punched.

The anti-Trump cadres themselves played a role in the violence. Protesters who had been able to infiltrate his events in small bunches somehow on Friday were able to get into his Chicago event in vast numbers and force its cancellation — their largest anti-Trump victory to date and one that at least some of them will probably want to replicate.

Trump’s campaign staff and security teams are responsible for safety at the events, but they are — as Friday night showed — clearly not a match for the thousands who pour into his rallies.

All that considered, nothing seemed likely to change simply from the shock of seeing it all play out on television.

In a hastily arranged interview Friday night on CNN, Trump denied that he bore any blame for his caustic treatment in the past of protesters and his campaign focus on Mexicans, Muslims and people in China and Japan who he says are taking American jobs.

“I don’t take responsibility,” he said. “Nobody’s been hurt in our rallies.” At the same time, he brought up his denunciation of immigrants and reiterated the harm he said had been done to America by those here illegally.

He placed blame for Friday’s and other events on protesters who he said had been “unbelievably abusive.” “I think we’ve been very mild with protesters,” he said. “Until today we never really had much of a problem.”

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In many ways, Trump is the continuation of a long line of political figures who have played on the emotions of the crowd, often by using racial cues or outright statements to enrage their followers and outrage their opponents. This form of demagoguery has been particularly dangerous in the days of the civil rights movement and beyond, and in times of economic difficulty.

In 1968, running a third-party candidacy for the presidency, the former Democratic governor of Alabama, George Wallace, campaigned with the veneer of race and violence ever present. He blamed “anarchists” for demonstrating at his events and encouraged cameras to focus on them, thus feeding his campaign’s argument that the nation was beset by anarchy. He insisted that right-thinking Americans should “do away” with the demonstrators.

Wallace did not overtly talk about race, but he didn’t have to: He had been a public segregationist as governor. He also repeatedly brought up issues such as fair housing laws — initiated to protect minorities — as topics of concern. By the time he finished riling up the crowds, Washington Post political writer David Broder once wrote, they resembled “a lynch mob.”

The Republican strategy for taking back the South after Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed civil rights and voting rights legislation led to other veiled activities. Ronald Reagan, elected governor of California in 1966 after campaigning against the state’s fair housing act, kicked off his 1980 post-convention presidential campaign swing with an appearance near Philadelphia, Miss., where three young civil rights workers had been found dead 16 years earlier. Those slayings were attributed to members of the Ku Klux Klan and local law enforcement officers.

Reagan’s speech that day segued directly from a denunciation of welfare to wording used by segregationists: “I believe in states’ rights,” he said. His aides denied that his intent was racial.

Race also flavored the 1992 presidential campaign of a Reagan aide, Pat Buchanan, who mocked others in racial terms and said immigrants who refused to “assimilate” threatened the country.

But given the immediacy that today’s media environment allows, no one has been able to spread a race-inflected message further than Donald Trump. He entered the race best known politically for challenging — without proof — President Obama’s citizenship. He immediately began campaigning for a wall to separate the U.S. and Mexico, and asserted that immigrants coming here illegally were “rapists” and “murderers.” He called for a halt to allowing Muslims to enter the country.

And he inflamed audiences with biting references to those who opposed him.

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Hours before he was to appear in Chicago, the New York real estate mogul taunted demonstrators whose shouting interrupted him in St. Louis.

“Go home and get a job,” Trump snapped at the Missouri protesters. “Go home to Mommy.”

He has often seemed to use the disruptions as a device to demonstrate his own power: “Out, out, out!” he demanded a week ago in Warren, Mich., each time protesters interrupted. After he did, his supporters chanted “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

Trump has openly pined for “the old days,” when, he says, noisy demonstrators would be carried out of a political rally on stretchers.

“I’d like to punch him in the face,” he told a Las Vegas casino rally crowd last month when one protester was ejected.

His suggestion came true Wednesday when a white Trump supporter named John McGraw punched a black protester in Fayetteville, N.C., and declared to “Inside Edition” that “next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” (McGraw was charged with assault and disorderly conduct.)

Protesters, sometimes affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, have become more and more numerous at Trump events in recent weeks. In St. Louis, they prevented Trump from speaking for long stretches of time.

Cathleen Decker is a former politic analyst for the Los Angeles Times who wrote about the Trump administration and the themes, demographics and personalities central to national and state contests. In 2016 she covered her 10th presidential campaign; she has also covered seven races for governor and a host of U.S. Senate and local elections. She directed The Times’ 2012 presidential campaign coverage. Decker left The Times in 2018.

Michael Finnegan is a Los Angeles Times politics writer covering the 2020 presidential campaign. A former New York Daily News reporter, he has covered national, state and local elections for The Times since 2000.

A person protesting a vaccine bill to place new restrictions on medical exemptions for children prompted an evacuation at the California Senate after throwing red liquid on lawmakers from the balcony of the chamber.